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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200939">barter, my sweet reaper</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtlenuage/pseuds/subtlenuage'>subtlenuage</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Closure, F/F, Gen, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, all pairings/characters except will and alana are only mentioned, past Molly/Will, sorta lol, you can read this as dark will or morally grey will</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:22:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,742</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200939</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtlenuage/pseuds/subtlenuage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alana Bloom is no fool to believe herself safe, in a universe that would have her torn limb from limb simply to hear the echoes of her pain. Her time on this earth is borrowed, and her every breath could very well be her last. Of that much, she's certain.</p><p>So it's all the more surprising, then, when a figure emerges from her shrouded past not to kill her, but to bargain instead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alana Bloom &amp; Will Graham, Alana Bloom/Margot Verger, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>101</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>barter, my sweet reaper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rain trickles down from the sky in an endless stream. It’s hardly any sort of deluge—rather, a simple drizzle that’s been going on for what seems like an eternity. Hours of its gentle barrage has brought a glimmering sheen to the roads, the thin coatings of water on asphalt glistening in the light of city street lights and the barely-visible moon.</p><p>It’s beautiful, and Alana wishes she could be in the mind to appreciate it.</p><p>As it is, she’s desperate, almost aching to just get home. All she wants and yearns for now is her soft, welcoming bed and the soft, welcome arms of her wife. Exhaustion wears at her bones, and it feels like the past three days have gone on for three years.</p><p>She really hadn’t meant to be gone from home for so long, especially when even now the thought of being separated from her family for even a few minutes ran instinctive shivers down her arms. Hell, she shouldn’t have even come to do this damn conference to begin with. Too many people, too much risk.</p><p>But she’d been invited so graciously, by an old friend she’d almost entirely lost touch with over the years ‘til now. It felt terribly rude, and more than a little hysteric, to refuse the generous offer just out of unshed paranoid.</p><p>Plus, Margot had insisted that she and Morgan would be fine for the day it took for Alana to drive to Knoxville on Friday morning, give a couple talks, meet some past colleagues, and stay for the night at a hotel before taking the drive back home. She’d be back in Chattanooga before Margot’s special 11AM brunch pancakes, no worse for wear.</p><p>That’s what she’d thought, what they’d both thought, but it’d barely taken a few minutes for that plan to go up in flames. One day became three, two talks became seven, and she’s lost track of how many catch-up lunches, green room chats, and other social outings she’s been dragged into over the days.</p><p>It’d been fun, sure, and more than informative. She hadn’t kept up very much with recent academia as of late, her mind too preoccupied with… other things over the past year. As such, it’d been more than exciting to witness new breakthroughs as they came in, real time. Not to mention, it’d been undeniably heart-warming to see the hopeful, wide-eyed researchers presenting their findings for the first time, no doubt the new budding future of their fields.</p><p>Still, a whole weekend of that has her entirely beat, and it’s with little ceremony that she dumps herself in her car and all but collapses in the driver seat. It takes great energy for her to start the ignition and sit up straight enough to drive. Vaguely, as she turns out of the parking garage, she wonders if it’s even safe for her to be on the road right now.</p><p>She could have just extended her hotel stay, no doubt, but Lord, she wants to be home already.</p><p>Her only slightly excessive compulsion to overpack for every trip she goes on is the only reason she had clothes for the whole weekend, and even that little stash of hers is running thin. Her skin feels matted with remnants of her poorly removed makeup, and she’s managed to deplete her emergency Xanax stores disconcertingly quickly.</p><p>But no matter. Just a little less than two hours on the road, and she’ll finally be home, to rest and unwind as she likes.</p><p>“Hello Alana.”</p><p>Or not.</p><p>Voices stick with Alana, they always have. More than faces, names, or anything of the sort, voices remain in her head for years and years to come. Their quiet echoes bounce around the inside of her brain with relentless pursuit ages after her first encounter with them, and they never truly leave, no matter how much she wants them to.</p><p>This voice, in particular, is one she knows she’ll never rid herself of.</p><p>“Will.”</p><p>Her fingers tighten around the steering wheel as she risks a glance back through the rearview mirror, even as every ounce of her logical ability screams not to. She doesn’t brake abruptly, though. Hell, she hardly even slows down, even when she catches a sparing glimpse of Will’s familiarly tousled hair and unfamiliarly piercing eyes.</p><p>He’s little more than a silhouette, half his form fading into the dark leather of her car, barely lit by the passing dim glow of the surrounding street lamps. But even then, Alana feels like she can see him, see what’s important, in startlingly high definition.</p><p>She can see the tender way his hair has been combed back to rid himself of a roughness Alana wished he still he had. She can see the crisp edge of his suit blazer, formed and fit to look as though he was made for the damn thing. She can see the close, uniform shave that shows the chisel of his jaw while maintaining an undoubtable scruffiness.</p><p>Were she less astute, she might say he looks the same as a year ago. But she knows he’s not, and all she needs to know that are his eyes.</p><p>His sweet, sweet eyes, once sunken-in by exhaustion of the frenzied horrors he faced on a daily basis in wake and in sleep, now stood out like a lighthouse on a foggy night. They’ve gained a sort of sharp clarity that seemed almost impossible to ever achieve, like a blind seeing for the first time. It’s by looking at them that Alana knows that her deepest, darkest suspicions that have lingered with her the past year are all true.</p><p>She’s lost him—they all have—and not to death.</p><p>“Do devils resurrect, or do they never really die to begin with?”</p><p>Will has the audacity to laugh, a short, bright chuckle that makes Alana’s gut curl.</p><p>“Devil’s too kind a word, Alana. You know that.”</p><p>She does, but she says nothing in response.</p><p>“Take a U-turn at the next light, on Oldham,” Will commands softly. Alana’s hands grip the wheel tighter, if even possible.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“<em>Alana</em>.”</p><p>Will sounds chastising, like a teacher talking down to a petulant child, and it takes all of her willpower not to swerve the car into the nearest building right then and there.</p><p>“I don’t need to know where you’re going,” Will continues when Alana drives past Oldham Avenue without even a hint of slowing down. “I don’t need to know where home is.”</p><p>Alana was to scoff, to cackle, at the insinuation that she’s driving a dead man to her home, but the sound gets stuck in her throat halfway. Because isn’t that exactly what she’s doing? She hasn’t diverted route at all, and the GPS on her phone shines dimly in the center of her dashboard and quietly directs her on her way. It doesn’t show her address, not yet, but it’s as good as anything.</p><p>“Want to find it out on your own?” she spits, though fear strangles her words halfway through. “The chase is half the fun, isn’t it?”</p><p>“There’s no chase to be had,” Will snaps, and the raising anger in his voice has her tensing involuntarily. He must notice, because he quickly sobers before speaking again. “Turn us around, Alana.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“<em>Turn us around</em>.”</p><p>There’s a snappy retort lodged in the back of her throat: something about him leading her back to a murder den, but jokes on him, she has tracking enabled on her phone so he’s bound to get caught. She wants to chortle on about getting him locked up in BHSCI and throwing away the key, but she can’t seem to get the words out her mouth. An insufferable, unbearable weight wedges its way into her throat and onto her chest, leaving her to do nothing but suffocate on her own gasps.</p><p>She turns the car around.</p><p>Will hums lightly, pleased at her compliance. Or, at least, Alana’s pretty sure he does. It could very well just be the gentle hum of her car engine, or the quiet thrum of the air conditioning, or the silent protest of her phone’s GPS, re-routing her path home. Hell, it could even be the muffled ringing of her own ears. She certainly can’t exactly hear much past the violent slamming of her own heartbeat against her eardrums.</p><p>“We’d hoped you were dead.”</p><p>Her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, as it trickles past the lump in her throat threatening to choke her at any given moment. Maybe it’d be easier if it did. She’d suffocate on something—perhaps her own tongue—and die on the spot, leaving no one to prevent the inevitable car crash. In her last living moments, she’d hope and dream that Will would die here with her, though she knows her luck well enough to know that her wish would never come true.</p><p>Death, as it turned out, can nary lay a finger on Will Graham.</p><p>“God, we’d hoped—if you’d just died, just thrown yourself off that cliff and put an end to all of it once and for all, at least then you wouldn’t… there’d be no chance that you’d, that you’d—”</p><p>“It’s alright,” Will says softly, just a hair louder than her.</p><p>Were they coming from anyone else, the soft, condoling words might have sounded relieving, even comforting. Hell, if she had heard them from Will even just a year prior, she would have taken solace in his quiet assurances. But now, <em>now</em>, those hallow, empty words of succor falling from a should-be-dead man’s lips only serve to infuriate her, enrage her, <em>incense</em> her.</p><p>“I know it’s a lot, but it’s okay—”</p><p>“It’s really fucking not.”</p><p>There’s a hitch in Will’s breath, and it’s the split second hesitation she needed to break open the dam and let her word flood out.</p><p>“This was—we never wanted this for you, Will! It was a dumb, desperate plan, sure. We never should have fucking gone along with it, we should’ve <em>known</em> it would’ve ended up…god, we should have known! But that doesn’t mean we ever thought… we never expected—you weren’t supposed to become this<em>.</em>”</p><p>She slams the breaks, and it’s only sheer luck and timing that keeps her from getting rear-ended. It’s too late at night for anyone else besides her to be driving around aimlessly in these sleepy residential streets, and the nearest main street isn’t for at least another few blocks.</p><p>Alana can’t quite decide how she feels about that, but she doesn’t linger on it as she raises her eyes to meet Will’s in the rear view mirror.</p><p>“You weren’t supposed to become <em>him.</em>”</p><p>As the words leave her own lips, Alana feels a piece of her heart chip away instantaneously. Once safeguarded by all the shadows of doubt and glimmers of hope in the world, that small fragment of her soul has now been no less than blown to smithereens.</p><p>For no matter how much she had tried before to hope and pray before, she knows now that it had all been in vain. She can practically see those hopes being turned to dust, can feel those prayers getting squashed to bits. She curls in on herself, an involuntarily visceral reaction as her mind processes the look on Will’s face.</p><p>He seems pleased.</p><p>He’s not smiling, not even slightly, nor does he seem smug or cocky in anyway. That’s not how she knows. Instead, she can see how there’s a pleasantly glazed look in his eyes now that wasn’t there before—one might call it simple intrigue, but Alana knows it’s more than just that.</p><p>He relishes in the comparison, <em>adores</em> it as he lets it wash over him the same way dread washes over Alana's entire being.</p><p>“You were happy,” she tries. Inside, she knows it’ll be a fruitless effort. Her voice quivers beneath the force of a sob anyway. “Before, before all of this. You moved past him, you’d gone on with your life. God, you, you had a family, Will!”</p><p>“I—”</p><p>“Molly, she was crushed, <em>devastated, </em>when you were announced dead. She had to see a grief counselor, for fuck’s sake! Does that mean nothing to you? Did <em>she</em> mean nothing?”</p><p>She’s shouting now, wailing like a mad woman in the middle of an empty street with a man who’s as good a stranger in her back seat. She doesn’t care.</p><p>“And her son—your son! He’s just a kid, and he’s had to lose two fathers already! Didn’t you love him, love <em>her</em>, enough to stay? You had a family, stability, everything that you were never allowed to have before, and you threw it all away for, for, for—”</p><p>“Hannibal.”</p><p>Alana jumps instinctively, whipping her head around as though the mentioned man would suddenly appear out of the darkness of night. But no, Will hadn’t been calling for him; rather, he’d simply allowed himself to finish the sentences Alana hadn’t the confidence to.</p><p>“You were happy,” she repeats, only half comprehensible past the trembling in her voice. Will shakes his head and sighs, as though her outbursts were little but petulant.</p><p>“I belonged to Hannibal long before the dragon, Alana. You know that.”</p><p>He’s right: she <em>does</em> know. She has for far too long now, as have all of them. Since the very first second they all knew the truth—the real truth, filled with “well-sourced” meat and falls through windows and everything in between— they’ve known that they were only holding threads of Will Graham, a paper-thin anchor holding the man back from a blossoming darkness they never wished to see.</p><p>They knew it all, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less now.</p><p>“Why are you here?”</p><p>Alana’s voice is raspy, dried out and hoarse from all of her screaming just seconds prior. Or has it been longer? Time passes oddly now, entrapped in the metal bubble she’s in. She’s always liked this car, and yet now it seems to suffocate her, the walls closing in and stifling every last breath of hers.</p><p>“To make a promise.”</p><p>She barks a laugh at that, though perhaps it sounds more like a sob than anything else.</p><p>“To make a promise?” she echoes, before her lips turn down into a vicious snarl. “Or to cash in on an old one?”</p><p>He knows. She knows he knows, and it’s a small mercy that he doesn’t try to feign ignorance.</p><p>“So what, he makes the promise and sends you off to do his reaping—is that it?”</p><p>“That’s not—"</p><p>“Oh fuck off. It’s obvious that I’ve been living on borrowed time this whole time—”</p><p>“On his, sure, but not mine.”</p><p>That shouldn’t startle Alana as much as it does. Her jaw snaps shut with an audible ‘click,’ and she allows herself to raise her gaze to their rearview mirror once again. Will doesn’t seem to have dropped his gaze even once, his eyes clear and calm as he stares not at her, but through her.</p><p>With a single, shuddering breath, Alana draws her eyes away and lifts her feet off the brakes. The car’s slow to start, trudging along until she gently accelerates down dark roads unknown.</p><p>“What do you want?”</p><p>Her tone is curt, as though ready to snap under thousands of pounds of pressure. It feels as fragile as her stability, a frayed wire ready to snap, but Will only regards her with a curious tilt of his head.</p><p>“Who says I want anything?” he asks.                                                        </p><p>Even in the dimness of night, his eyes sparkle with a blinding innocence. His lips are perfectly poised yet relaxed altogether, and his eyebrows even scrunch together a little in a mocking show of confusion. It’s times like these that allow Alana to comfort herself, to forgive herself for falling for the entrancement of knowing Will Graham. No one, not even Will himself, could ever seem to comprehend to full extent of his shrewd manipulations, purposeful or not.</p><p>No one except, as it turns out, Hannibal Lecter.</p><p>“Please, Will.” Alana’s taken aback by how tired her own voice sounds, though she supposes she shouldn’t be, when just this conversation alone feels like it’s shaved years off her lifespan. “Just tell me why you’re here.”</p><p><em>Why now</em>, she thinks with only a pittance of rage. She’s far too exhausted to muster up much more.</p><p>Will considers her for another moment, demeanor calm but eyes inquisitive, before he finally breaks away from their shared gaze to look out the window. Eye contact. That’s another thing that’s so unfamiliar about this Will, his willingness and readiness to meet eyes even though only a few years ago, he shriveled at the very thought.</p><p>Though, considering everything, it’s probably the least Alana has to worry about.</p><p>“He made you a promise,” Will says after a long moment’s silence. He’s still looking out the window, as though the bare terrain of suburban Knoxville’s the most interesting thing in the world.</p><p>“He did.”</p><p>“It’s his to keep. You know as well as I do that he’s relentless once he has his mind set on something, no matter the consequences. I can’t stop him.”</p><p><em>And I won’t</em>, he doesn’t say out loud, but Alana hears nonetheless.</p><p>“But… promises don’t always have to be fulfilled right away.”</p><p>She grips the steering wheel tighter and ignores the squeaking sound of leather rubbing against her warm palm.</p><p>“You could live happy, for quite some time,” Will continues, as though oblivious to the mental torment he brings. “Ignore the skeletons in your closet, travel around the world with your family, see little Morgan off to high school. You could grow older together, with them.”</p><p>There are so many things Alana wants to say. She wants to enragedly ask how Will knows her son’s name. She wants to hesitantly point out the use of <em>older</em>, not old. She wants to resignedly ask if Hannibal knows that Will is here, bargaining for her life because she herself lost the rights to it ages ago.</p><p>Wisely, she keeps her mouth shut.</p><p>“He’d come eventually, even I can’t deny that. But who’s to say it’d have to be any time soon? There are so many things to do in the world, so many things he’d like to show me.”</p><p>He almost purrs when he says <em>‘me</em>,<em>’</em> and it raises the bile in Alana’s throat.</p><p>“If he were to, say, get a bit distracted for a few years, a decade, maybe even two—then well, nothing to do about that, is there? I don’t think so. And who knows? By then, he might be satisfied to take his blood and be done with it, no fanfare to be had. Merciful retribution, if you will.”</p><p>“What mercy is it, if he’s going to come for me eventually anyway?”</p><p>The words are out of Alana’s mouth before she can stop them, and God does she wish she could have. Regret barrels into her with a punch to the gut. What is she <em>thinking</em>, tempting the devil like that?</p><p>Will turns back to her and raises his eyebrows.</p><p>“As it is right now, he’d rather have you dissected piece by piece, cooked to perfection, and served to your wife and son as you watched.”</p><p>He leans forward as he talks, a panther preparing to pounce. Alana stiffens.</p><p>“Then, only once they’ve seen the last bit of light leaving your eyes, seen your body twitch fruitlessly for one final time, would he move on. And honestly—do you really think he’d show them any kindness, after all that?”</p><p><em>Your wife, your son, your life—they’re all mine</em>.</p><p>“You’re the family trauma specialist, aren’t you, Dr. Bloom? What do you think watching his mothers die and eating their remains will do to little Morgan’s psyche?”</p><p>“Stop.”</p><p>It’s a plea as much as it is a cry, her voice cracking over the force of her own sob. Tears are beginning to well past her eyes and drizzle down her cheeks in pathetic surrender. Will leans back, and Alana takes a sharp, choppy inhale as his murky shadow fades.</p><p>“Wha—” she croaks, before clearing her throat and straightening her back. If she’s to make a Hobson’s choice, she’d at least do it with her dignity intact. “What do you need from me?”</p><p>Will grins, all teeth, and she barely stops a shudder from running down her spine.</p><p>“Jack’s been ringing quite a bit lately, hasn’t he?”</p><p>An instinctive urge to lie wells up in Alana almost immediately, but she squashes it. It’d be futile, anyway. Playing dumb in front of the man with a severe empathy disorder never quite worked out well, unsurprisingly.</p><p>“Honestly, it’s hardly a cause for a concern most of the time,” Will continues. “Failure and loss’s made him paranoid, skittish. He seems to see a lead anytime someone so much as breathes wrong, and it has him running all over the country in a frenzy. A bit sad, if you ask me.”</p><p>He pauses.</p><p>“…but maybe he’s realized the error of his ways.”</p><p>“Will—”</p><p>“What does he tell you, Alana?” Will interrupts. “That he wants an update to my psychological profile? That he wants some insight from the one who watched over and <em>treated</em> Hannibal Lecter when he was incarcerated? Or does he just say that he wants to catch up over a drink and reminisce over old times, maybe bounce some ideas off of you?”</p><p>There’s a heavy lump building in Alana’s throat again, but this time she just swallows and speaks past it.</p><p>“Last time I checked,” she says slowly, “he was still trying to convince himself that you were being coerced, if you were really still alive.”</p><p>Will actually laughs at that, a short, bright thing that goes as quick as it comes.</p><p>“Good ol’ Jack, he never changes. Maybe I’ll pay him a visit soon.”</p><p>The chill that runs past Alana’s skin is unavoidable this time.</p><p>“Yo…you want me to tell you where he is, then?”</p><p>The very thought makes Alana’s gut curl uncomfortably, but it stops when she sees the look on Will’s face.</p><p>Surprised. He looks surprised.</p><p>“What? No, no, gosh, no,” he splutters, though Alana knows better than to feel relieved. “Jesus, you give him too much credit, Alana. You really think he’s gone and hidden at all? Honestly, sometimes it feels like he <em>wants</em> us to find him…”</p><p>“Then what do you want?” Alana spits with more acid than she intends.</p><p>“Think, Alana,” he snaps back. “He going all over, following lead after lead to no avail. No one at the FBI, not Jack or any of the poor fuckers he’s scooped along to replace me with, can track us down. And then, after a year of that, he starts ringing you up again. Why do you think that is?”</p><p>Alana’s throat goes dry with realization,</p><p>“Insight,” she whispers. “From someone who knew you both, from someone who saw you.”</p><p>“Certainly gives him a better shot than whatever <em>fresh perspective</em> some random field agents can muster up, doesn’t it?”</p><p>“Someone who can pull apart the pieces, pick out the cold trails and reorient the search.”</p><p>“Or, someone who can throw off the scent altogether.”</p><p>“You really think—”</p><p>“I really hope you won’t insult me by saying it’s impossible. We both know very well that there’s a conniving snake beneath your compassion, has been since Abigail threw you out that window. Toying with Jack would hardly be that much of a challenge for you now, would it?”</p><p>She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to.</p><p>“But I leave the choice up to you, Alana,” Will says, with the firm tone of God laying judgment upon mankind. “It’s either that, or step away entirely, lest you invoke a wrath you can’t control.”</p><p>“And if I do help him?”</p><p>“Well, I suppose it’ll be much harder to… <em>distract</em> Hannibal, when you get so close. An old promise can slip his mind for a year or ten. An immediately threat, on the other hand… And, well, once his mind’s made up, it’s like I said: he’s relentless.”</p><p>Her mind’s made up before he even finishes.</p><p>“I’ll call Jack tomorrow and tell him to never call me again.”</p><p>He smiles, as though to take the pressure off the death sentence he’s given her, and she smiles back. A plea for pity, perhaps, or maybe just a final, resounding sign of sweet surrender.</p><p>“Thank you, Alana,” Will says, and it almost sounds sincere. “I didn’t really want to have to do this, but well… I have my world to protect. You understand.”</p><p>And the awful thing about it? She does, she really does. She understands that, beneath the warped neuroses and wicked manipulations of it all, that Will truly believes this is what has to happen. He believes that he’s doing right, by protecting the life he’s built for himself, protecting the person he… <em>loves.</em></p><p>Alana tries not to retch.</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>Will watches her for a long moment, one that feels like it could outstretch into hours, days, years if they weren’t careful. What does Will see in her now, Alana wonders. Those wide, glistening eyes that once looked at her with such care and wonder are now both deadened with hardship but enlivened with thrill. Yet, for all his changes, the man behind her now is, invariably and undoubtedly, Will Graham.</p><p>It’s not nearly as comforting as she wishes it would be.</p><p>“Good,” Will says eventually, before his eyes flicker up to somewhere ahead of them. “There, that park up ahead. Stop the car there.”</p><p>Alana obeys easily, too easily. It feels as if she’s floating, her mind somewhere else as her limbs are moved by a force that’s not her own will or whim. The experience is as freeing as it is horrifying, but she says nothing as she pulls the car to a slow halt.</p><p>Darkened by the night, the park’s entirely deserted, leaving empty jungle gyms and grass patches and even tennis courts. It won’t last long, of course. Alana’s sure that within hours, as morning arises once again, the slow flood of local residents will seep in. Children will play and parents will chat and elders will walk, all entirely oblivious to the shroud of malevolence that had graced their lovely park just hours prior.  </p><p>Good. Let them stay blissfully ignorant to tonight’s transgressions, for bliss is better than blood.</p><p>“I suppose this is where I get off,” Will says, as Alana hears the click of the backseat door opening.</p><p>“Will—”</p><p>“Do be careful on your travels home. It’s always dangerous to travel so late at night.”</p><p>Not a threat, oddly enough, but instead just a pleasantry. They’ve had enough threats for one evening, Alana supposes.  </p><p>“Good night, Alana.”</p><p>Their eyes meet one last time, and the coiled knot in Alana’s chest finally begins to unravel.</p><p>“Good bye, Will.”</p><p>For what’s the point of capitulation, if not relief?</p><p>She watches with tired eyes as he slides out of the car, the door slamming shut behind him in one resounding thud. His form’s hardly visible in the light of the waning moon and flickering streetlights. The deep navy of his clothes fade into the shadows, his whole being blending into the night as though he were little more than a mirage. The remnants of rain on the windshield, mostly but not entirely wiped away by wipers, muddles the sight of him through the glass even further, ‘til he’s little more than a blur.</p><p>Even so, Alana watches.</p><p>She strains her eyes to see him as he walks away, further into the empty park. She doesn’t dare look away or even blink for as long as she can make out even the tiniest glimpses of him. She keeps her gaze trained on him as his figure fades from sight like wisps of smoke fading into the air. It’s not until he’s entirely out of sight—but never out of mind—does she dare to avert her gaze to the road.</p><p>Blood no longer rushes in her ears, and slowly, the sound of trickling rain rings through the air once more. Its gentle pitter-pattering sounds floods her senses, and Alana keeps her mind trained on those as she watches her GPS re-route her path home once again.</p><p>She’ll take the day off work tomorrow, she decides as she turns the car around, and spend it with her family. It’s the least she can do.</p>
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